


Functions

by Stark_Black



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Bodyswap, Gen, M/M, omg how do you Dave?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-08
Updated: 2012-08-08
Packaged: 2017-11-11 17:36:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,724
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/481111
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stark_Black/pseuds/Stark_Black
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Response to a request from my moirial. Due to a slight teleporter malfunction, Dave and Karkat switch bodies. Karkat is pissed. Dave thinks it's funny.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Functions

Your name is Dave Strider, and currently you are having more fun than you probably should be.

  Your voice went hoarse over an hour ago, and for the last thirty minutes, all that has passed between your lips has been dry, cracking wheezes. It was inevitable though, keeping up the Strider Air of insufferably laid back and cool beyond that which is fathomable to anyone else now currently residing in paradox space—and possibly the entire universe (or what’s left of it), requires that you maintain a baseline decibel level. To exceed that level and increase volume in any situation other than the most excellent of strife matches, or laying down the most delirious of flows, would break character and destroy aforementioned Air completely.

  So, long story short, because you rarely raise your voice, the fact that one Karkat Vantas has been using it to scream obscenities for the last few hours has caused it to fail completely.

  You raise one grey, unfortunately clawed hand to your ear (or what you think is the equivalent to an ear anyway) and raise eyebrows innocently.

  “Sorry, what?” you say in Karkat’s raspy tenor. “I didn’t quite catch that. Could you repeat that please, Dave?”

  Karkat rages, clenching your hands into fists and pounding them against your temples. You know if he could make any noise besides unintelligible huffs and weezes, he would no doubt be tossing the sickest of insults at you right about now.

  “Dave,” you rasp again, dang that feels weird in your throat (or _chute_ , whatever the fuck it is that they call it), “Dave, I still can’t understand you.”

  He’s stopped hitting your head with his fists and is now all up in your—well, his own—face, flames practically _leaping_ from behind your shades.

  “ _Don’t call me Dave, fuckass_.”

  You’re actually surprised that the shades are still in place. Granted, the second that the realization of what had just happened to both of you hit him, Karkat had ripped your best bro’s gift from his—well, your—face and had learned firsthand what it felt like to be Dave Strider in close proximity to fluorescent lighting. 

  It felt a lot like shit. That is, if the colloquialism is indeed true and shit feels like a million fucking needles all stabbing your poor defenseless corneas at the same time.

  Needless to say, Karkat shoved the shades back on his face—or your face, whatever—and proceeded to spend the next twenty minutes raging about your eyes and your fleshy, weak human carapace, and your hair, and your clothes, and whatever else he could think of.

  And all this was only the warm up for the bitching about malfunctioning teleporters and how this would have never fucking happened if people would just learn to use the motherfucking stairs.

  Oh, hey, Rose is talking again.

  “…but everything is stored in the system logs, so it’s possible the event can be recreated. Give us a few more hours and we should be ready for a test run.”

  You lean back to rest against the table—woa, it’s higher than you remember, damn Karkat is short—and fold your arms across your chest. Karkat’s chest. Whatever.

  “By ‘test run’ do you mean ‘have Dave and Karkat use the malfunctioning and completely unstable teleportation pads again in an attempt to swap back to their original bodies?’ Because I’m just gonna come right out and say that I love that idea, and I’m totally excited to try that a second time. Let’s see if we can find a bug or more specifically a fly to try it with us and tomorrow maybe I’ll be vomiting acid all over my food so I can digest it easier. That would be cool.”

  Kanaya looks at you with her creepy vampire eyes and shakes her head. “I am ninety-seven percent positive that this will work. We can recreate the timing. We have isolated the collision domain and we’ve created a program that duplicates the original timing on the packet headers for both pads. You two will just have to start from the same pads as you started with originally, and then you, Dave, can handle the rest.”

  “This is why we’re only ninety-seven percent positive this will work,” Rose mutters over the computer screen.

  You shrug and run your tongue over lips that feel a little rubbery. “No problem, I got this shit.”

  Karkat growls from across the room and rubs his temples. Your temples. But he doesn’t say anything and that’s actually a little weird. You had expected him to start in with another bout of longwinded carping upon hearing that they would be stuck this way for another couple of hours. But no, there he is, doing a weird pace thing and not looking at anything but the ground.

Oh shit, you think, he doesn’t know how to breathe properly with your lungs and he’s getting light-headed. Christ knows you had a hell of a time figuring out the whole air thing when you first showed up in the new skin. Damnit, in a few minutes he’s gonna pass out and crack your head open on the floor. 

  “All right ladies,” you nod and push off the table, “I’ll leave you to it. I’m gonna take advantage of this golden opportunity to appreciate my choice ass. And by that I mean make sure a certain troll doesn’t slit my wrists in a hysterical fucking attempt to escape my human skin. See you in a couple hours.”

  Kanaya waves, but Rose ignores you as she’s obviously too busy doing computer things. You turn and move towards Karkat, momentarily dismayed by the face the troll is making with your face. What the hell is his problem? What is he even doing?

  “Yo, Karkat.” He doesn’t look at you. “Hey, Vantas, what the hell is your problem?”

  Karkat turns to you and you’re pretty sure he’s glaring at you from behind your shades because, well, what else would he be doing?

  “ _Strider_ ,” he croaked, “ _Keep all sharp objects away from me right now if you want to keep any of your fleshy fucking ridiculous parts intact. In fact, keep everything away from me because the second I get ahold of something even as unassuming as one of your fucking human spoons I’m going to start assaulting everything I can reach._ ”  

  You raise an eyebrow. “It’s really that bad?”

  Karkat bares his teeth—your teeth—and fumes. “ _It is that fucking bad you insipid douchebag! I can’t even begin to think of just how to explain so that your tiny human think pan can under_ …”

  He stops abruptly and that look comes back over his face. There’s definitely something wrong and he’s too much of a retard to tell you.

  “Okay,” you say quietly, almost in a whisper. You move in close and hold up your hands in a surrendering gesture when he flinches away. “Listen, I don’t like this either, but I’m trying to not freak out and just go with it. I want to get back in my own body without all my parts being filleted, and I want to get you back into yours too.”

  Karkat turns towards you and his mouth—your mouth— curves down and up at the same time in a sort of lovechild of a frown and a sneer. Damn, you didn’t even know your mouth could do that.

  “Now,” you continue, “something is obviously up and I need to make sure that you haven’t screamed my body into internal bleeding or something, so could you please tell me why you’re making all those faces like you’re gonna die?”

  Karkat stands frozen for a moment, obviously debating on whether or not to divulge his current dilemma. When he finally does speak, it’s in a voice you almost recognize.

  “ _It’s not_ …” he stops, scratches at his—your—chin, and then starts again. “ _It’s not a pain or anything, just a… like a pressure? It doesn’t hurt right now, but it feels like it’s going to fairly soon. I read somewhere that only human females can gestate human offspring, but if I was wrong and you’re pregnant, Strider, I swear to the mother grub’s bloody spoor membrane that I’ll fucking—_ ”

  “Woa, okay stop. Just stop.” You hold up your hands in that same surrendering gesture, only this time, a little more frantic. “Okay, where is this pressure? In my stomach?”

  Karkat hisses at you. “ _If I knew that, you overstimulated furuncle gland, I would have just said ‘your fucking stomach hurts, Strider’!_ ”

  “So, where is this pressure!?”

  Karkat makes fists with your hands and takes a few huffing breaths. Apparently, this is to calm himself before he looks down and points to your lower stomach, right below your navel.

  “ _Right in here, grubfist. It feels like swelling or some shit. I might have torn something internally and not noticed right away. It’s hard to tell with your fragile fucking excuse for a body_.”

  It’s pretty hard to keep yourself from laughing your ass off. You know exactly what’s happening, and while the thought of leaving Karkat to believe that he’s occupying a dying body, you don’t really want to damage your prostate.

  You turn and beckon him to follow you. “Come on. The only way to fix this is in the bathroom.”

  Karkat stutters and falls into step behind you. “ _Wait, bathroom? What does your human waste room have to do with this? Your nasty human guts are probably falling out of whatever glandular sacks they’re supposed to be packed in and you want to take me to the_ —”

  “—Dude, shut up,” you wave your hand in dismissal, “you just have to pee.”

  Karkat is silent for a moment as you both make your way down the corridor. “ _Oh_ …” he murmurs finally.

  After you’ve opened the door to the bathroom and stepped aside so Karkat can enter, the troll whips around, his—your—mouth open wide in shock and all kinds of horror.

  “ _Fuck. Wait_ ,” he snarls, your voice slipping away as he revs up for a brand new onslaught of cosmic objecting.  

  “ _Dave… Dave does this mean I have to touch your bulge!!?_ ”

  You shrug. “You want me to hold it while you do your thing?”

  “ _NO!!_ ”

  He slams the door in your face.

  You smile.

END


End file.
